TIMELINE
The Westbury Village Project is following a four step approach: Ask, Investigate, Discuss and Decide.
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In the fall of 2021, we asked residents if they supported putting time and energy into talking with Vermont villages and other organizations and then approach the Town of Colchester to see what a village here in Westbury might look like. Of 164 responses, 162 supported the plan to investigate and 2 did not (we hope the two who did not support the plan continue to be part of the dialogue and part of our collective education in the discussion and decision steps).
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Over the winter of '21-'22 we collected data on different villages and we spoke with organizations that support non-profit cooperatives like our own.
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In January of 2022 we reached out to the Town, to let them know that as residents of Colchester we believed it was essential to take public, services and infrastructure that our co-op had inherited in the purchase of the park - specifically, services managed publicly in other parts of town. We are calling this "finishing the process of becoming a public neighborhood."
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On April 12, 2022, 14 residents and interested parties from Cooperative Development Institute (CDI), Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO) and Tarrant, Gillies and Shems (TGS) attended a Colchester Selectboard meeting to ask the town for support in researching a model for the village that could maximize the public good for Colchester residents living in Westbury and the Town as a whole.
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During the month of May we have been increasing resident awareness of the project and holding sessions (twice a week) to answer questions about the plan.
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In June and July we took the feedback from our May sessions and reviewed the plan so it would address two items we heard repeatedly:
1) The creation and operation of the village should pay for itself.
2) Any discussion to transfer a service from the co-op to the village must be transparent and have benefits to the community demonstrated by both the co-op and the village.
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We have now finished the main parts of the INVESTIGATE and DISCUSSION phases of the project so that as residents and as a community we can decide how to proceed. Starting in August we will begin to circulate the petition. This will be done slowly so that everyone has a chance to weigh in, ask additional questions and express their views and suggestions.
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For residents who have been following the FB page, the proposed charter and a sample copy of the petition is available there. Hard copy of the proposed charter has been available in the mailroom and beginning in August, copies of the petition will be available there as well.